Those who scored above 170's, are you all avid readers? Forum

[freestallion]

This is an interesting topic. I don't think there's a high correlation between LSAT score & reading. I read a LOT of nonfiction books, at least a couple per month, and I read a ton of substantive news articles, blogs, etc on a daily basis. But my reading comprehension score was the part of the test I struggled with the most, and which I simply could not improve. I got a 173, but -4 on reading comp I would regularly go -0 or -1 on all the other sections, but between -2 and -5 on RC.

So yeah, I read a ton, but I don't think it helped me.

[20130312]

ITT: People who read believe they're better than you.

[pupshaw]

177, -1 RC. I'm a very avid reader, so I may not have the perspective you're looking for, but just generally speaking I would say that if you're looking to improve on RC then there is simply no substitute for reading more. Read anything, just get your mind in the habit of focusing on text.

Are you at an advantage if you've been a life-long reader? Yes, absolutely. But that doesn't mean it's too late to make some progress if you haven't been.

[basilseal]

ITT: People who read know they're better than you.

FTFY

[rinkrat19]

I wonder how much of the resistance to reading for pleasure stems from schools forcing kids to read such absolute shit. If I hadn't already been an avid lifelong reader, I doubt being forced to wade through the entire collected works of William Fucking Faulkner in AP English would have made me one. (I hate Faulkner and his 35-page run-on sentence in The Bear with the fire of a thousand supernovas.)

Even when a school picks a decent writer (Shakespeare, Steinbeck), they seem to pick the titles least likely to entertain a student, at least in my school district (Richard III, The Red Pony). I swear the only mandatory books I ever enjoyed in school were All Quiet on the Western Front and Lord of the Flies. I'd go home and read something good just to get the taste out of my mouth.

[snehpets]

I wonder how much of the resistance to reading for pleasure stems from schools forcing kids to read such absolute shit. If I hadn't already been an avid lifelong reader, I doubt being forced to wade through the entire collected works of William Fucking Faulkner in AP English would have made me one. (I hate Faulkner and his 35-page run-on sentence in The Bear with the fire of a thousand supernovas.)

Even when a school picks a decent writer (Shakespeare, Steinbeck), they seem to pick the titles least likely to entertain a student, at least in my school district (Richard III, The Red Pony). I swear the only mandatory books I ever enjoyed in school were All Quiet on the Western Front and Lord of the Flies. I'd go home and read something good just to get the taste out of my mouth.

Yeah, I agree. Plus I think they pick books that might be interesting to an older reader but are totally lost on a stupid 9th grader (as I was). The intricacies/underlying themes of stuff like 1984, Brave New World, even the more basic Grapes of Wrath were pretty much lost on me at age 14. Also, I could have gone for some literature where just once no one died/killed themselves. Romeo & Juliet followed by the Picture of Dorian Gray followed by Things Fall Apart followed by depressing as hell Great Expectations didn't exactly set me up for a lifelong love of reading.

[rinkrat19]

I wonder how much of the resistance to reading for pleasure stems from schools forcing kids to read such absolute shit. If I hadn't already been an avid lifelong reader, I doubt being forced to wade through the entire collected works of William Fucking Faulkner in AP English would have made me one. (I hate Faulkner and his 35-page run-on sentence in The Bear with the fire of a thousand supernovas.)

Even when a school picks a decent writer (Shakespeare, Steinbeck), they seem to pick the titles least likely to entertain a student, at least in my school district (Richard III, The Red Pony). I swear the only mandatory books I ever enjoyed in school were All Quiet on the Western Front and Lord of the Flies. I'd go home and read something good just to get the taste out of my mouth.

Yeah, I agree. Plus I think they pick books that might be interesting to an older reader but are totally lost on a stupid 9th grader (as I was). The intricacies/underlying themes of stuff like 1984, Brave New World, even the more basic Grapes of Wrath were pretty much lost on me at age 14. Also, I could have gone for some literature where just once no one died/killed themselves. Romeo & Juliet followed by the Picture of Dorian Gray followed by Things Fall Apart followed by depressing as hell Great Expectations didn't exactly set me up for a lifelong love of reading.

There really was an emphasis on the depressing, wasn't there? I was thinking back even farther, to like 6th grade, and I remember reading Z for Zacharia (lone girl surviving in a post-apocalyptic world), Bridge to Terabithia (starts off all nice until one of the two main kids drowns), Number the Stars (girl's family gets involved in helping her friend's family hide from/flee the Nazis), and Homecoming (kids are abandoned in a parking lot by their mother so they make their own way across the state). God forbid we could have read some Anne of Green Gables or something!

[Angrygeopolitically]

I read a lot of Russian lit. I also read Proust and Nabokov the year leading up to the test. I think it helped. But Games was still my best section -178

Perhaps if you are not used to reading dense stuff it just takes a little more studying to get used to it.

[dstars823]

havent read a book since probably 8th grade, unless you count humorous websites as educated reading.

I've learned so much from Cracked.com.

so have i, its all I do at work

[Ohiobumpkin]

I would usually score the highest on RC (any where between -1 to -4), and I have been reading things such as
The Economist, NYT, social science literature, philosophic and religious literature, and science & technology news articles. So yes, reading dense literature for a number of years helps you confront the RC. I actually usually find the RC passages to be reasonably easy.

[glucose101]

The idea behind being an avid reader is that you read frequently the materials you will be tested on--meaning, the more you read, the easier and faster it will be to process information. However, correlation is not causation.

[STLMizzou]

171- Read more than most, but not a ton. I usually have like, 3 or 4 novels going at once depending on what I am the mood to read that night. Spend about an hour a day reading.

For the 2 weeks leading up to the LSAT, I only read one book at a time, and all super easy reads (Read the Hunger Game series and similar light fiction). I really think it helped keep my mind engaged but still rested it from a long day of studying (I was scoring mid-high 160's on most practice tests before those last few weeks)

[Simplicity]

When I was a kid? Yeah. Now? No, although I did read every book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series in a span of about a month. Yeah, they were that good.

RC is usually my worst section. I very rarely miss any questions on games, and LR is usually -1 to -3 per section. My avg. test is 174-175.

[tng11]

...

[suspicious android]

Reading is one of the most overrated activities, especially reading novels. It doesn't make you smart. Reading an average NYT bestseller isn't much different, intellectually than watching an average/slightly highbrow hollywood movie. This might not be true for kids and teenagers who actually need to learn how to read and process ideas, but once you're in your late teens, reading novels is mostly entertainment.

Not that there's anything wrong with entertainment, or just art appreciation.

177, read about 3-4 books per year since college, a lot more before that.

[slacker]

I hope the avid readers realize that the people who haven't read any books since whatever grade are the norm. Some of you sound shocked.

[rinkrat19]

I hope the avid readers realize that the people who haven't read any books since whatever grade are the norm. Some of you sound shocked.

norm =/= good

[snehpets]

Reading is one of the most overrated activities, especially reading novels. It doesn't make you smart. Reading an average NYT bestseller isn't much different, intellectually than watching an average/slightly highbrow hollywood movie. This might not be true for kids and teenagers who actually need to learn how to read and process ideas, but once you're in your late teens, reading novels is mostly entertainment.

Not that there's anything wrong with entertainment, or just art appreciation.

177, read about 3-4 books per year since college, a lot more before that.

I kind of disagree. I don't think it makes you "smart," necessarily, but I think for people who aren't naturally gifted writers it can help a lot with the way you phrase things in papers/life. With someone who is inherently good at writing it obviously doesn't make a difference, but I think if you compare two naturally untalented writers where one reads a lot, I think their phrasing, flow, etc. is often a lot better, or at least a lot more universally acceptable. It just gets in your head, I think.

[06162014123]

.

[rinkrat19]

Reading is one of the most overrated activities, especially reading novels. It doesn't make you smart. Reading an average NYT bestseller isn't much different, intellectually than watching an average/slightly highbrow hollywood movie. This might not be true for kids and teenagers who actually need to learn how to read and process ideas, but once you're in your late teens, reading novels is mostly entertainment.

Not that there's anything wrong with entertainment, or just art appreciation.

177, read about 3-4 books per year since college, a lot more before that.

I kind of disagree. I don't think it makes you "smart," necessarily, but I think for people who aren't naturally gifted writers it can help a lot with the way you phrase things in papers/life. With someone who is inherently good at writing it obviously doesn't make a difference, but I think if you compare two naturally untalented writers where one reads a lot, I think their phrasing, flow, etc. is often a lot better, or at least a lot more universally acceptable. It just gets in your head, I think.

+1
Even if you just read light stuff, you're still seeing a thousand different ways to phrase a million different thoughts. All that vocab and all those variations in sentence structure get internalized and you end up with a much, much larger "toolkit" to draw upon when you start writing something yourself. And it shows in the clarity, elegance and flow of your writing. (Just look at the PS forum.)

[annyong]

I read a lot for fun, but I also read a lot for school and it's usually a range of material with varying levels of difficulty. I'm a double liberal arts major (yes, pointless, I know), so most of my time is reading and writing. FWIW, I went -2 on RC, but I blame most of that on magnetism and ocean floors

[slacker]

I hope the avid readers realize that the people who haven't read any books since whatever grade are the norm. Some of you sound shocked.

norm =/= good

Didn't say it was but some people here seem genuinely surprised that others haven't read a book in years.

[Tom Joad]

Lots of people read all day long but it just might not be novels or books for tat matter. I think that kind of reading should still build up your "toolkit" for writing.

[20130312]

Reading is one of the most overrated activities, especially reading novels. It doesn't make you smart.

Credited.

[pupshaw]

This thread is depressing as hell.

Credited.